Executive Arrested In Fraud

April 25, 1989|By RENEE KRAUSE, Staff Writer

Millicent Edwards had lost her job and was looking for a new management position so she could support her four children.

After reading a newspaper advertisement, the North Lauderdale woman turned to Vare, Townsend Associates, a career counseling firm that promised interviewing tips, resumes and jobs with salaries up to $300,000.

On Monday, Edwards finally received some satisfaction -- she learned that one of the career counseling executives was arrested in Colorado 1 1/2 years after he reportedly ran away with her $1,522 fee.

``I feel good about the arrest. But, I want to know if he`s going to pay back the money he owes and how this is going to help people who are looking for jobs. There are more people out there doing this,`` Edwards said.

David Halpenny, 47, was arrested outside Denver on a Fort Lauderdale arrest warrant, said Vicky Barber, an investigator for the Colorado Attorney General`s Office.

Halpenny was charged with one count of running an organized scheme to defraud and nine counts of grand theft, Fort Lauderdale police Sgt. John Calabro said.

Halpenny was working as a sales manager for a career counseling agency that is under investigation in Englewood, Colo., when he was arrested last week, Barber said.

Like the Fort Lauderdale Police Department did when Halpenny operated a business in Broward County, the Colorado Attorney General`s Office is investigating the firm Halpenny was working for, Barber said.

From March 1987 until December 1988, Halpenny and Klaus Breitbarth, 61, ran Vare, Townsend Associates out of a building at 1 Cypress Place, records show. Clients paid from $1,522 to $5,932 for services.

Police are still looking for Breitbarth and have a warrant for his arrest charging him with the same crimes as Halpenny.

While in South Florida, the two ran ads in newspapers promising jobs and salaries from $30,000 to $300,000. The ads said that 80 percent of job openings are not advertised in newspapers or with placement agencies and that Vare, Townsend Associates had 20 years of experience.

Their counselors would teach clients how to present themselves at interviews and ``find the hidden job market,`` Calabro said.

Instead, clients got one or two resumes based on ones they already had written and a list of companies to call or write. ``They could have done the same thing with the phone book,`` Calabro said.

Then, when clients tried to reach the firm in January 1988, they got a recording that said the phone had been disconnected, records show.